How do wetlands protect the surrounding land areas?

Answer 1

People used to think of wetlands as a nuisance - obstacles to be conquered on the march of progress. We know better now. Some have called wetlands "kidneys of the landscape" because of their role filtering the undesirable stuff that runs off surrounding land. Today, wetlands are still obstacles to development, but nature isn't the only thing throwing up the roadblock. Scientists and environmentalists are educating people about the benefits of wetlands. Legislators are enacting laws to protect wetlands. For good reason. They help control floodwater. They replenish groundwater. They provide habitat for many kinds of plants and animals. Their destruction, experts say, has contributed to everything from flooding in rural and urban areas to the deterioration of water quality in the Chesapeake Bay. Since Colonial times, according to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, about 42 percent of Virginia's wetlands have been destroyed. Today, just 4 percent of the state is covered by wetlands, according to Ann Jennings, a wetlands scientist with the foundation. Laws to protect wetlands came in the wake of the federal Clean Water Act in 1972. More are passed regularly - such as the wide-ranging protections passed this year by the Virginia General Assembly and signed by Gov. Jim Gilmore. Protecting wetlands is at the center of the debate over the King William Reservoir. The project would destroy 403 acres of wetlands in the Cohoke Creek watershed. In November 1996 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency gave the project its worst rating when it looked at the project's environmental impact - "Environmentally Unsatisfactory" - because of the wetlands that the project would destroy. The following year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also recommended against the project because of the wetland losses it would cause. The state Water Control Board granted a permit for the project in 1997. But a federal permit is also needed - from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.